"Elouise Cobell’s longstanding lawsuit against the Interior Department was settled in December. The settlement brought victory — and, she thought, $3.4 billion — to half a million American Indians who had been cheated of proceeds from lands that had once been theirs.

The suit took 13 years. The injustices it sought to remedy stretched back for more than a century. The question now is: How long will it take the Senate to actually appropriate the $3.4 billion? It has failed to do so twice, once when a filibuster killed a bill it was attached to in June and again in late July when the Senate voted to strip it, along with other domestic programs, from an Afghanistan war appropriations measure.

The settlement arose out of a lawsuit in which Ms. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation in northern Montana, was the lead plaintiff. The suit charged that the federal government, through mismanagement and malfeasance, had shortchanged accounts it had held in trust since 1887, when Indian lands were placed in federal hands. The lands were then leased for mining and other purposes, with the proceeds going to the trust accounts.

The cumulative shortfall over the years undoubtedly exceed $3.4 billion, which means the settlement is a bargain. The Obama administration would like to see the money paid out. Even so, the Senate balks, in part because a few Democrats aren’t happy with the settlement, partly because of delaying tactics from Republicans."